Junior Hero
by ack1308
Summary: When sixteen-year-old Robert Curry finds himself manifesting superpowers, this causes him to question the most firmly-held tenets of his life. As an aspiring young superhero, he has to balance his home life, his social life, and the life of a Ward. It's not always easy ...
1. Chapter 1

**Junior Hero**

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><p><strong>Part 1<strong>

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><p><em>Disclaimers:<em>

_1) This story is set in the Wormverse, which is owned by Wildbow. Thanks for letting me use it._

_2) I will follow canon as closely as I can. If I find something that canon does not cover, then I will make stuff up. If canon then refutes me, then I will revise. Do not bother me with fanon; corrections require citations._

_3) I welcome criticism of my works, but if you tell me that something is wrong, I also expect an explanation of what is wrong, and a suggestion of how to fix it. Note that I do not promise to follow any given suggestion.__ Posting a negative review from an anonymous account is a good way to have said review deleted._

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><p>I never expected to join the Wards. Heck, I never expected to get <em>powers.<em>

But we don't always get what we expect.

Growing up, I suppose I should've been just a_ little_ curious; after all, Mom's a plump brunette and Dad's a skinny redhead. How the two of them could produce a tall, muscular blond-haired son like me ... well, genetics isn't my strong suit. What_ is_ my strong suit ... yeah, well, it's not hard to figure out where I get my gifts from, not if I do the math and just a little research.

Which I _did _do, well after the fact. Yay me.

* * *

><p>I suppose I should backtrack a little. Go back in time, so to speak. Start at the beginning.<p>

Actually, what the hell. Let's go back to the_ real_ beginning. That sets the clock back to February of 1994, when my Mom was a junior college reporter, engaged to marry a certain red-haired straight-A's physics major (aka, "Dad"). That was the year the Protectorate dropped in to Brockton Bay College, to wow the locals and to spread the good word about parahumans and the great life they could have in the Protectorate, under the watchful eye of the PRT. Not that they pushed that last bit too hard; I think they might just have been fishing for any rogues hiding in the student body.

They didn't find any, but then, some people weren't looking too hard. There were other things that they had in mind.

Let's do a head count here. This was the 'real' Protectorate, the four heroes that had opted to move their team under the government umbrella, in return for funding, bases, funding, troops to guard said bases, funding, good publicity ... oh yeah, and funding. This was Alexandria, Legend, Eidolon, and the forgotten fourth, Hero.

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><p>Oh, people <em>remember<em> Hero. They just tend to forget that the Triumvirate used to be the Protectorate, way back when, even before the government swallowed it up and made it into just another department with a budget and oversight, and that Hero was a founding member. When the Siberian ripped Hero apart, the 'core' Protectorate became the Triumvirate almost indecently fast, as if distancing themselves from the fact that there ever had_ been_ a fourth member.

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><p>Anyway, back to the reception that the College put on for the Protectorate. Drink was flowing in plenty, and there was lots of good company. In particular, lots of college girls and guys. And if there's one thing that popular culture gets right about college girls and guys, it's that a lot of sex goes on at college. And some of these aforementioned girls and guys were turning their gaze toward the visiting celebrities. I mean, come on. Seriously. The bragging rights for banging Alexandria would have been <em>epic<em>.

Unfortunately for the overly ambitious, Alexandria was just as much the ice queen then as she is now. Gorgeous? Sure. Sexy? Not a doubt. Approachable? Like hell. Guys were trying to talk to her (according to my Dad, who swears up and down he had too much respect for my Mom to even make the attempt, but I have my doubts ...), but were being shot down in droves.

Eidolon was a similar case. Intense wasn't in it. He just wasn't_ interested_. He spent half the evening levitating six feet above the table, apparently oblivious to everyone around him.

Legend was a nice guy, and chatted to everyone. But he hadn't come out yet, and so the gay guys didn't even know they had a chance. Not that any of them would have dared make a pass, then. Ironically, it was Legend who made things that much more acceptable, in college and out of it. But the girls were almost literally throwing themselves at him, and he was basically being polite about it, but simply not noticing what they were trying to do.

Which left Hero.

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><p>Mom's big score then, the thing that made her college days, was the interview that she did with Hero. She didn't have a chance to get close to Legend, but the famous Tinker was overshadowed by his more handsome and charismatic teammate. So Mom apparently managed to spend some time in his company. The interview made the student paper the next day, and was even reprinted in the Brockton Bay Times.<p>

The rest, I've had to piece together on my own. I'm fairly certain that Mom and Dad were on the outs right then, from a story Dad told me a couple of years ago. He was apparently a wild one in college, and one or two of his escapades may have not been in the best of taste. Mom heard about one of them, and they had a tearing argument, about three days before the Protectorate showed up. They didn't go to the reception as a couple, and they didn't leave together.

Mom's a bit close-mouthed about who she _did_ leave with, but then again, so is Dad.

But when I look at the dates, things start to match up. I was born in November of 1994. I mean, I guess I could have been conceived when they made up their differences in bed, but really? Their one child is tall and blond?

Which of the Protectorate was tall and blond?

Hero.

And what was his power?

He was the first known Tinker.

Three weeks ago, I triggered.

I'm a Tinker.

And I think I'm Hero's illegitimate son.

* * *

><p>I suck at physics.<p>

Which is kind of a disappointment to Dad, who teaches it. He's always had the idea in the back of his mind that his son will go to BB College and retrace his steps in the Walk of Fame.

Yeah, well.

See, it's not that I can't _grasp_ the concepts. They're there. I can see them. I can do the equations and get the right answers. It's just that it takes me the same time, or maybe a little longer, than most other people my age. In a nutshell, I never inherited my Dad's instinctive understanding of the subject. Or his skinny frame. Or his red hair.

Really, it should have been clear to me from an earlier age that I hadn't inherited _anything_ from him except the surname. But kids growing up don't look at things that way. There are always more important things. Mind you, I always loved him and Mom, and I still do. I don't care that he's probably not my biological Dad. He raised me. He instilled his values. And I think I'm a better person for it.

But from time to time he tries again to get me interested in physics, to see if 'this time' will be the charm. And because he's my Dad, and because I really hate to disappoint him (what son does, really?) I have another whack at it.

And so, late on that fateful Monday night, when I really should have been in bed, wondering if I'd be seeing Kate in Biology class again, and if she'd give me that same cute little smile, I was working on some of Dad's physics 'homework'.

It was rough stuff, college level at least. I was slogging my way through it, head beginning to spin with the concepts I was having to deal with, having to refer to one book or another just to figure out what the heck I was trying to do. And I hit this one problem that simply would not work out, to do with quantum wormhole tunnelling. It stumped me. I tried for an hour to make that thing come out, but it refused. Finally, I gave up and went to bed. I was angry and frustrated, and tossed and turned for far too long before I drifted off.

I dreamed of strange mechanisms.

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><p>In the morning, I woke up and looked over the 'homework' again, before getting ready for school. I still couldn't figure how to reach a solution for the problem, but as I looked at it, I began to envisage a way to solve it in the real world. Jotting down a few notes and ideas, I got dressed, had breakfast, and caught the bus to school.<p>

Clarendon may not be the best school in Brockton Bay - I mean, I'd _love_ to go to Arcadia - but at least it's not Winslow. Yech. I heard some girl got shut in her locker for the whole damn day, before anyone bothered letting her out. Seriously, is the entire faculty blind and deaf there?

Anyway.

I spent the day dividing my attention between what the teachers were saying, and jotting down more ideas in my notebook. I spent time with my friends during the lunch hour, discussing the latest Earth Aleph movies, before going back to class. More ideas, more diagrams. It didn't feel as though I was figuring them out, but more like they were appearing fully formed in my head.

I got home before Dad, and went straight to the garage. Dad had gotten in a lot of stuff over the years, trying to work out how to demonstrate physics to the students in his class in such a way that even the slowest kids got it. His success rate was not great, but there was a lot of stuff there that I could use.

Referring sometimes to the notebook, and sometimes to the new diagrams that were forming in my head, I assembled my first device. It was about five inches across and heavier than it looked. Using the tiny keypad (off a broken phone) I typed in coordinates, and then hit the enter key.

Nothing happened for a long moment, and then everything flashed. When my eyes cleared, I was ten feet from my previous location. Right where my coordinates had said I was going to be.

There was no doubt about it; I was a Tinker. No-one apart from that could throw together the contents of a typical garage and build a hand-held teleporter.

There was only one question left to ask.

Two questions.

Three.

One: What else could I build? Ideas were starting to pile up in my head. I could see what I'd done, and now variations were starting to suggest themselves.

Two: What was I going to do with my talent? Show it off? Sell my gadgets to the highest bidder? Fly under the radar? Or join the Protectorate as a Ward?

Three: What the hell was I going to tell Mom and Dad? And what did it _really_ mean, to myself, to my parents, to the world, if I actually turned out to be Hero's illegitimate child?

I could tell I was going to have to think about this.

* * *

><p>End of Part 1<p> 


	2. Chapter 2

**Junior Hero**

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><p><strong>Part 2<strong>

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><p>The second thing I built was a remote for the first. This took about an hour.<p>

Basically, it was a 'come-here' button, mounted on a wristwatch base. But before I could even use it, I had to update and improve the teleport device.

I rigged up a harness so that Device Number One, or D-1, clipped into a bracket more or less in the centre of my chest, in easy reach of either hand. And then I went to work on D-1.

Typing in coordinates each time I wanted to jump was going to be tiresome, even if I seemed to now have a natural affinity for distances and angles and suchlike. So I cheated. I threw in a GPS locator, and tied in the waypoint register to the keypad. One extra button, and voila! All I had to do was hit the waypoint button, it would store that point in memory. Hit the 'return' button in conjunction with a waypoint number, and it would calculate the coordinates and return me to that point.

Theoretically.

I had to do one more thing before I field tested this thing in earnest. Pulling D-1 apart a third time - much more of this and I would have to get a bigger casing, again - I started calibrating its mass sensors.

* * *

><p>See, normally, it would grab whatever that was touching it, up to a certain limit. I had this figured to be about one good-sized adult, or about one and a half times my weight and volume. Whatever it grabbed, would go along with it, which was why on my first test I went with, instead of standing there while D-1 fell to the floor ten feet away.<p>

If I was going to use D-2 (aka: "the Remote") I might need to dial down the mass sensors to zero. This wasn't hard; in the process, I figured that I could also dial them all the way up to about the mass of ten adults, but that would burn it out so hard. I made a mental note about that, but it would very much be a Hail Mary pass.

* * *

><p>Once I had D-1 sorted out, I pulled open D-2 and made sure that it was all compatible with the changes in D-1. It wasn't, but a few extra modifications fixed that up.<p>

So then I was ready for my first field test.

Standing in the middle of my bedroom, I pressed the waypoint button and stored that in memory 1. Then, hiding D-1 under my jacket, I told Mom I was going for a walk.

"That's fine, dear," she replied absently. "Just be back in time for dinner."

I kissed her on the cheek, and went out into the back yard. Reaching into my jacket, I waypointed again, then took a deep breath and pressed Return and memory 1.

When my eyes cleared, I was standing in my bedroom.

I fist-pumped just a little bit at this point, but I didn't move around too much. My bedroom was over the kitchen, and I didn't want Mom wondering why I was upstairs again.

I hit Return and memory 2, and pow! In the back yard again. Just like that.

This Tinker stuff was frickin' _awesome._

I had an idea then, and I pulled out the notebook and jotted it down. Then I opened the side gate and headed out.

* * *

><p>While I walked along, I found myself assembling Device 3 in my head. Sort of like a mine that you stepped on, which would teleport you wherever it was set, and would stay were it was. It would require cut-out circuitry to keep the device from being carried along in the teleport field, but that was doable. I could see the cops putting these down at a riot or whatever, and whoever stepped on it would end up in a holding area.<p>

I put the notebook away when I reached Kate's place.

What, you thought I was walking aimlessly? Yeah, right.

I hadn't forgotten good old D-1 either; I had hit the waypoint button a few times on the walk, where I could appear out of thin air and not really be noticed. But that was work; this was play.

I knocked on the door; she answered. Tall, slim, good-looking, coffee skin, long black hair. Flashing Latina eyes. I think her family was Puerto Rican or something. It wasn't something I was worried about. She was a nice girl. They were good folks.

"Hey, you," she greeted me with a smile.

"Hey, you," I answered wittily.

"What are you doing over here?"

"Just walking around the neighbourhood, thought I'd drop in and say hi."

The amusement in her eyes told me that she wasn't buying it for one second. But she turned her head and called back into the house, "Mom! Rob's here. Is it okay if he comes in?"

Kate's mother, a slightly shorter and dumpier version of her daughter, appeared in the kitchen doorway. "Hello, Roberto. Come, come in. It is nice to see you. Staying for dinner?"

I grinned; she always called me 'Roberto'. I think it was her way of saying that she liked me. "Sorry, Mrs H. Mom's already got it cooking at home. I just came over to spend some time with Kate, if that's okay?"

She rolled her eyes. "Always spending time with my Catalina, and not with me. Shoo, shoo, go. Be with my daughter. Leave me alone and forgotten in the kitchen."

Kate and I both laughed, and Kate kissed her mother on the cheek. "We'll be upstairs, Mom. We'll leave the door open."

Mrs Hernando shook her wooden spoon at me. "You make sure you do. Or this is for you."

I mimed fear; it was Kate's turn to roll her eyes. "Oh, _Mom_. Rob's a good boy, not like the others. Aren't you, Rob?"

I shrugged. I could not deny that I was just as interested as any other boy my age, but Dad and Mom had instilled a fairly complete set of morals into me - possibly by drawing on their college experiences and going "don't do that". So I wasn't a skirt-chaser. I liked Kate; I liked her a lot. But I knew there were lines we shouldn't cross, not until we were mature enough to handle the potential consequences.

Mom and Dad, after all, had had to get married in an awful hurry after Mom discovered she was pregnant with me. _That_ was a cautionary tale that had already been drummed into me.

We trotted up the stairs to Kate's bedroom, carefully leaving the door open as promised. Kate plumped herself down on the bed; I sat beside her.

My jacket fell open; I had forgotten to fasten it. That was when she saw D-1 in its chest harness.

"Rob?" she asked. "What's this?"

I cursed myself; in hindsight, it seemed obvious that visiting Kate would end up in physical closeness. But damn it, I had _also_ forgotten about D-1 being under my jacket.

And then I wondered if some part of me had not set this up deliberately, just so Kate would find out. Because I wanted to share my secret with _someone._ And Kate was the coolest person I knew.

"I, um ... Kate, you can't tell anyone about this," I told her seriously. _"Anyone._ At all. Ever."

"About what?" she asked. "What _is_ it?"

I unclipped D-1 from its bracket on the harness. From the original configuration, it was now about eight inches across, two inches thick, and quite heavy. I wasn't quite sure where the extra weight came from; I suspected that when it was activated, mass from another universe crept in. Or something. Remember, I suck at physics.

Kate held it in her slim, delicate hands, staring at it. "Rob," she whispered. "What does it _do?"_

I held up a finger. "Allow me to demonstrate." I clipped it back into the harness, stood up, and hit the buttons to store her bedroom in my waypoint memory. Then I closed my jacket and headed out into the hallway and along to the bathroom. Kate went to follow, but I waved her back to the bed.

Once I was in the bathroom, I pressed the buttons to return me to the last waypoint.

At this point, it should have been obvious what was going to happen. In hindsight, sure. But I was a teenage boy trying to impress his girlfriend. And so I went ahead and did it.

I appeared in Kate's bedroom, right in front of her. She squealed so loudly that I was temporarily deafened.

"Sh-sh-shhh!" I hissed desperately. Kate was staring at me, eyes wide.

"What is going on up there?" called out Mrs Hernando. "Catalina, are you all right?" I heard her coming up the stairs, fast.

Suppressing the impulse to jump back to another waypoint - any waypoint - I zipped my jacket and sat on the end of the bed, well away from Kate.

"Yes, Mom," Kate managed, just as her mother entered the bedroom. Short and dumpy she may have been, but I would not have wanted to deal with her for any money, right at that point. Forget a woman scorned; hell hath no fury like a mother whose child is threatened. "Rob just - just -" Her imagination failed her at this moment, and she stared at me helplessly.

"What did you _do,_ Robert?" asked Mrs Hernando, shaking the wooden spoon threateningly. I noticed the lack of 'Roberto' and knew I had to make it good.

"I, uh, told her some of the gossip that's been going around school," I improvised hastily. "Word is, some Wards are getting transferred into Clarendon."

Which was purest bull-puckey, as far as I knew. Arcadia was _the_ school that Wards went to, as far as the gossip went. But it sounded good, or at least I hoped it did.

"Wards?" asked Mrs Hernando, suspiciously.

I shrugged. "Kate's a bit of a cape geek, aren't you, Kate?"

"Uh - yeah," Kate backed me up. "I love them. I wonder who might be coming over. It'll be so cool."

Which sounded weak to me, but seemed to pass muster with Kate's mother. She eyed me suspiciously, then gave Kate a once-over that noted the exact position of every stitch of her clothing, and ascertained that nothing was out of place.

With a sniff, she turned to leave. "Good," she told us. "Do not frighten me again like that, Roberto."

"I'll try not to," I told her, very sincerely indeed.

As her mother's footsteps descended the stairs once more, Kate turned to me.

"What did you _do_, Rob?" she whispered. "How did you do _that?"_

And so I told her.

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><p>End of Part 2<p> 


	3. Chapter 3

**Junior Hero**

* * *

><p><strong>Part 3<strong>

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><p>"You're a <em>cape?"<em> whispered Kate, after I finished telling her what had happened.

"A Tinker," I confirmed. "I've got all sorts of ideas for things I can build."

"So what do you think your speciality is?"

"Teleportation," I told her. "I mean, I have ideas for body armour and stuff like that, but building D-1 just came so easily to me."

She tilted her head. "D-1?" she asked.

"Device Number One," I confessed, hanging my head. _I should have used a much more impressive name, like ... Quantum Wormhole Teleporter Module or something._

She laughed and put her hand on my shoulder. "Oh, Rob, that's so cute."

"Cute good or cute bad?"

"Cute good, of course." Her eyes took on a daring gleam. "Can you take me along on a teleport?"

I shook my head. "No, but you can help me test out D-2. And then I'll show you how to use it yourself."

"Ooh, how can I help?"

I unstrapped D-2 and handed it to her. "The red button there will recall D-1 to it when you press it. I'm going to jump back to my bedroom, then wait for you to recall me. Give me five seconds from when I disappear till you press the button, okay?"

She nodded seriously. "Okay." Grabbing me, she gave me a kiss on the cheek. Thinking back, it was maybe the first time she'd actually done that. "Come back safely." _Wow._

My tone was joking when I replied. "I sure will, if I can have another one of those when I get back."

She giggled. "Mayyybe."

I stood up and stepped away from the bed, then hit Return and memory 1 on the keypad. Nothing happened.

"Is there someth-" began Kate, and then she was gone. Or rather, I was gone. When my eyes cleared, I was in my bedroom.

_Okay, so longer distances involve a delay before jumping. That's good to know._

I was just beginning to process that when all of a sudden, I was back in Kate's bedroom, blinking away the teleport haze.

"Wow."

Kate stood up and kissed me again, same place.

I blinked again. "Wow."

She smiled at me. "Did it hurt?"

I grinned dopily at her. "I'm not feeling any pain at all."

She jabbed me in the ribs. "I mean, did the teleport hurt?"

"No, not at all. I mean, there's a little bit of dazzling when you arrive. Don't know what that's from. But apart from just a little bit of a delay for a longer jump -"

"You mean, you hadn't jumped that far before?"

"Oh heck no. Farthest I'd jumped before was from the back yard to my bedroom."

She stared at me. "So that's the longest jump you've done so far?"

I nodded. "Piece of cake."

"So ... can I have a shot?"

I shrugged, although I felt a strange reluctance about handing over the device to her. "Uh, sure?"

"Thank you!"

With her willing help, I unclipped D-1 from its harness, and showed her which buttons to press. "Return and one to get to my bedroom, and return and seven to get back here. Got it?"

"Got it," she announced happily.

"And if you're not back here in thirty seconds, I'm hitting the recall button." I held up D-2, which she had returned to me.

She nodded seriously. "Thirty seconds, gotcha."

Before I could give her further unnecessary instruction, she pressed the first two buttons. There came the pause, and then she vanished. Just like that.

"So that's what it looks like," I murmured.

"What's what looks like?" came a voice from the doorway. "And what are you doing in Catalina's room? Where is she?"

"Ah, hi, Mr H," I temporised rapidly, standing up and moving toward the door. "Kate's just gone to the bathroom, I think. Her mom knows we're up here."

Carlos Hernando, burly dock worker and man I did not want to cross, nodded. "Very well." He headed off down the passageway to his bedroom.

There was a soft _pop_ from behind me, and Kate reappeared, her face alight with excitement.

"That was _estupendo_," she enthused, breaking into the Spanish of her parents, which she rarely did. I grinned, and took D-1 back off of her.

"No discomfort?" I asked, as we clipped it back into place.

"None," she assured me. Then she paused, and looked at me with huge puppy-dog eyes. "Could I ... maybe ... have one of those for my own?"

I could never resist those eyes. "Sure. I can put it together tonight."

"Can you use it to bring things to you?"

"No. I'd need to attach ... hm. If I made smaller versions of D-1, controlled via a panel, so no controls needed ..." I pulled out my notepad and began to scribble.

She snuggled up to me. "Thank you, Rob."

She kissed me again; I didn't object.

* * *

><p>When I finally, reluctantly, decided to go home, I walked out the front door of the Hernando home, ducked into a park, and jumped to the waypoint nearest my house. Then I walked the rest of the way back.<p>

This Tinker tech stuff was very, very handy. And Kate was promising to maybe kiss me again sometime, just because I'd said I would give her one.

I could think of worse reasons.

By the time I got to the front door, I had ideas for several new devices floating around in my head.

"Evening, Rob," Dad greeted me. "How's things?"

"Pretty good, pretty good." I still hadn't told him or Mom. It never quite seemed the right time. "Actually, you know that physics problem you set me last week, the one about quantum wormhole tunnelling?"

He chuckled. "Ah yes, that one. I kind of pulled a dirty trick on you there; that one admits of no answer. I keep it to pull on my advanced students when they get too big for their boots."

"What the hell, Dad? I worked for hours on that one!"

He shrugged, lightly. "Sorry. It's to illustrate that not all physics problems have a coherent solution, and more importantly, to be able to recognise when you see one."

"Dad, I'm not up to your advanced physics classes!"

"Well, bring it to me and I'll show you what to look for."

I shook my head. "Maybe later. I'm kind of over physics right now."

"Suit yourself. Oh, have you been taking stuff out of the garage? Some of my teaching materials are gone."

"Yeah, I kind of took them for a project I'm working on."

"Could you replace them at some point, then? I might need that some day."

"Sure thing, Dad."

He went back to his paper; I escaped upstairs, stored D-1 and D-2 in my closet, and washed up before supper. Mom was kind of a stickler about things like that.

Tomorrow, I thought, I would go to the store where Dad got his teaching materials from, and buy as much as I could afford.

I had all _sorts_ of ideas for devices.

* * *

><p>End of Part 3<p> 


	4. Chapter 4

**Junior Hero**

* * *

><p><strong>Part 4<strong>

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><p>Mom had broken the hinge on her clutch purse a few weeks ago, and Dad had taken it to the garage with the clear intent to fix it. When a week had gone by without any repairs being performed, Mom had sighed and bought another one.<p>

This had given rise to an argument that was so old, I could fill in the respective sides without even venturing from my room.

* * *

><p><em>Dad: Why did you do that, I was going to fix the old one.<em>

_Mom: I got tired of waiting for you to do it, dear._

_Dad: I was getting around to it._

_Mom: And while you were getting around to it, I didn't have one. And I needed one. So I got one._

_Dad: But I could have fixed it, and you could have saved the money._

* * *

><p>And so on, and so forth. In the meantime, the broken purse sat on Dad's workbench, unattended. So when I asked Mom if I could use it – in a class project, I told her – she shrugged and told me I was welcome to it.<p>

When I saw Kate at school the next day, I pulled her aside.

"Did you do it?" she asked me, her face eager.

In response, I pulled the clutch purse from my bag. "Here, check it out."

She opened it; within, as opposed to the compartments and suchlike, was what I privately called the KD-1. It was basically the same as the D-1, with a few less bells and whistles, to bring down the weight and volume. Oh, and I'd fixed the busted hinge. Tinker skills were useful for _some_ things.

"Cool," she breathed, brushing her fingers over the tiny screen, the equally small keypad. "Hey, there's a button missing."

I nodded. "That's the Manual button. It's used for inputting coordinates. All you have to do is hit Store and a button, and it will store the coordinates of where you are right now."

"Why don't I have a Manual button?" she asked, beginning to look a little upset.

"Because my power's given me an instinctive understanding of distances and angles," I told her. "I could, for instance, put in coordinates that would get me from here to my seat in the computer lab. But if you tried something like that, you might end up inside a wall. So the way I have it set up for you is much safer."

"Oh," she replied, mollified. "Well, it's gorgeous. Thank you."

I grinned. "Anytime. Oh, and you might want to plug it in to wall power every few days." I pointed at a small power plug, tucked into a recess. "And if any of those orange warning lights come on, don't use it till I've had a look at it. And if any of those red warning lights come on, put it down and walk away from it before you call me to have a look at it."

She blinked, taking in the tiny, neat row of orange and red warning lights. All dark right now, these were designed to report misalignments and malfunctions in the various mechanisms that made up the KD-1.

"Okay," she told me. "I can do that."

"And don't go doing anything stupid with it, okay?"

She smiled and kissed me – on the cheek, again. I supposed I'd have to work harder for the smack-on-the-lips thing. "You know me, Rob. If I do anything stupid, I think about it first."

* * *

><p>Ironically, my being a Tinker didn't give me an particular advantage at school, even in the sciences. Just because I had designed and built such a device, that allowed me to step from one point in space to another, didn't mean I had a real grasp on the physics behind such an act. In fact, I suspected that from the viewpoint of the physics we understood, what I had built was impossible. Tinker tech, as had been remarked by many people before me, was bullshit.<p>

If I had been doing Shop, things might have been a little different; I had a good grasp on the mechanics of assembling devices now. Of course, anything I built in Shop may well have had teleporters included in the design, because I had _so_ many ideas now ...

D-3, the teleport mine, turned out to be relatively easy to put together. Along with D-4, the remote designed to work with it, I had no problems with assembling it. Put it down, set the coordinates using D-4 – in that order – and then the next person or thing to depress the sensor pad on top (an old rubber mat) would be teleported to wherever the coordinates sent them.

My immediate thought was that it could be used to drop criminals straight into a holding cell; of course, the glaring flaw with this was how to get said criminals to step on to the device, which was not all that inobvious.

While I was thinking about that, I was already working on D-5. I wanted to be a superhero; superheroes occasionally came into contact with the criminal element, who may well be resentful of the hero's presence. And so, I wanted to protect myself.

The basic concept of D-5 was an energy shell, not so much a force field as an event horizon. Anything touching it was teleported to the exact opposite side of me. Material items, that is. Through some quirk of tinkertech physics, energy was absorbed into the field, and was an absolute pain to dissipate; if too much built up, the entire generator could burn out. I didn't want to find out if that meant all the stored energy would explode out of the field like a bomb while I was still wearing it.

And then I hit on the idea of using the field to _power_ the generator. Energy hitting it would literally recharge it. This was good, because material items – bullets, shotgun pellets, knives, et cetera – drained the battery when they were teleported from one side to the other. And once I followed that on with using the excess energy to power my other devices – using a quantum-entangling connection that I called the QD – I was set. So long as a certain number of foes hit me with energy attacks, I could run my devices all day.

Of course, then I also needed a way to carry the fight to the bad guys. I'm reasonably proficient with my fists, for a sixteen year old. But against a twenty-year-old Empire Eighty-Eight thug, I'd be really not so much of a challenge. Teleport, yes. Punch, not so much.

Still, I wanted to prove that I could do the superhero thing. Plus, I was strapped out on my allowance after doing the final test runs on D-5. I had a really cute idea for D-6 and D-7, based off an Earth Aleph computer game, but there was no way I could afford the energised crystals, or the materials to build them.

So I decided that I would go out as a cape, help the community. Right a few wrongs, get on the Protectorate's radar, and get recruited by them. Surely they paid the Wards; any extra cash would be a godsend here.

* * *

><p>My weapon of choice, I decided, would be a baseball bat. At least until I could get the funding to complete D-6 through about D-13. I had filled three notebooks with closely-scribbled notes and diagrams, and was working on a fourth. I also wanted to rebuild D-2 and D-4 with the QD connectors; it would bypass jamming and ensure a perfect signal anywhere. D-3 could do with a power connection the same way. More than that, D-9 was an idea for a HUD running via a QD connection to my computer at home, with a police band radio attached, so I'd know where I was needed. All the useful gear, with none of the bulky extras needed to keep it running.<p>

Anyway, I needed funding badly. So that's what found me out and about on that Wednesday night, wearing a makeshift costume, with D-1 on my chest, D-2 and D-4 on my left and right wrists respectively, D-3 on my hip, and D-5 clipped on to the back of my belt.

My costume was a black cloth mask, a black fake-leather jacket with reflective yellow panels, a black t-shirt with the letter Q stencilled in yellow paint, black jeans and the heaviest boots I owned. The jacket also had the letter Q stencilled on the back.

I only realised after I strapped D-1 on that it obscured part of the Q on the t-shirt. Ah well, I was still working this sort of thing out.

For now, it was good enough, or so I hoped.

And that's what had me out in the wilds of Brockton Bay on a school night.

My study of the superhero scene had indicated to me that a starting lone hero needed three things; mobility, the ability to defend himself against superior odds, and the ability to find out where he was needed.

I had the first, in spades. The second was fine, so long as D-5 held out and did its job. The third ... yeah, still working on that.

I don't know how it is for other starting superheroes, but I nearly gave up and went home on my first day. Night. Whatever. For the first two hours, nothing. I swear, the criminal element of Brockton Bay could have been playing bingo for all the action I saw.

* * *

><p>But then I heard a cry, from an alleyway. I was getting good at typing coordinates without looking, so I jumped down to ground level, right in front of the alley. At the same time, I activated D-5.<p>

"Hey!" I yelled, pulling out my torch and shining it into the alley. "What's going on here?"

Two men looked up guiltily from where they had a woman pressed back against the wall.

"Nothin' ta see here, junior, move along," growled one.

I dropped the torch, hit the Save button, then calculated coordinates and tapped them in. When I jumped, I was already swinging the bat.

I appeared, unable to see because of jump-dazzle, but the bat impacted behind the knees of the man I was aiming at. My eyes cleared; I swung again, this time at the other man, as the first collapsed.

My bat hit him on his upraised arm, and then there was an impact on my thigh that drove me back several feet.

The man on the ground had kicked at me, and while his shoe had been teleported off his foot, D-5 had not teleported him!

This was a factor I had not considered. Weapons, yes. Big things like people, no.

But I was in this fight now, and so I was committed. I stepped forward and swung the bat at the downed man's arm; I wanted to disable him, not kill him.

His companion was about to step forward at me when there was a hiss of escaping pressure, and he screamed as he clutched at his eyes. The woman had found something in her purse – pepper spray, maybe – and sprayed him with it. This put him out of the fight.

The other guy was still on the ground; he was scrabbling backward as we both advanced on him. He obviously wasn't a threat any more; we let him go. Scrambling to his feet, he bolted down the alleyway, leaving the other man to writhe in pain.

I escorted the woman to the mouth of the alley, and got my first good look at her. She was dressed as a streetwalker, and I belatedly realised that I may well have gotten the wrong idea about what was going on in the alley.

"Uh ... that was a robbery or something, wasn't it?" I asked, as I picked up the torch.

She nodded. "Or something. Bastards didn't want to pay."

"Ah. Okay. Well, I'm glad you're all right."

She suddenly smiled my way, the expression making her look about my age. "Yeah, thanks. I appreciate it. Didn't want to lose my night's takings as well. Say, what's your name, anyway?"

I cleared my throat. "I'm calling myself Kid Quantum."

"Huh. Cute name." She paused, and I could see her looking me up and down. "Say, how old did you say you were?"

"I ..." My voice squeaked; I cleared my throat again. "I didn't. I'm, uh, eighteen."

She snorted. "My Aunt Fanny, you're eighteen." Giving me a wink and a smile, she sauntered off down the street. I stood there like a stuffed dummy, staring after her.

It was the sirens that broke the spell. Fire truck sirens.

Now, _this_ was something I could look into.

* * *

><p>End of Part 4<p> 


	5. Chapter 5

**Junior Hero**

* * *

><p><strong>Part 5<strong>

* * *

><p>I got on to the rooftops and followed the sirens. Pretty soon I didn't need them; it was fairly obvious where they were going.<p>

It had once been a fairly affluent neighborhood; there was a bunch of brownstones facing a park. But the area was now rife with gang activity, and money had been moving out. It was run down, with both the buildings and the park showing signs of wear and tear. No doubt the park was a meeting place at night between members of one gang or another, and let the uninitiated beware.

One of the brownstones was well alight by the time I blinked into existence not far away from the fire trucks. It was a good five storeys tall, with flames belching from windows on every floor.

The firefighters had a problem of their own; someone had thoughtfully abandoned a whole series of cars in front of the brownstone, arranged in such a manner that the fire trucks could not get close to the building. Worse, it appeared that some of the fire hydrants had been welded shut. I took a good look at the onlookers, and understood almost immediately.

Virtually all of the bystanders were dark-skinned, to one degree or another. It followed that the inhabitants of the brownstone were likewise black, or otherwise not Caucasian. Which, combined with the abandoned cars, made this deliberate arson. And, if I was right about the voices I could hear from the windows, murder.

* * *

><p>My guess was that the Empire Eighty-Eight had a hand in this, somewhere. It was just their style.<p>

I looked around; I was going to need a clear space. Just as I found it, a heavy hand fell on my shoulder.

It was one of the firefighters. "You need to get back, kid, before -" he began, then his gaze fell on my mask. "Hey, you're a _cape?"_

"Yeah," I replied. Cool, I was getting some recognition at last. "Kid, ah, Quantum. How many people are up there?"

"Ah, we're not sure. Maybe half a dozen, maybe a lot more."

Shit. Unless I acted fast, they were going to be dead. "Listen," I told him. "What's your name?"

"Ed," he replied automatically. "Ed Falks. But you need to talk to the fire chief."

"Don't have time," I told him, saving that spot into D-1's memory. "Stay where you are for just a moment. I'll be back."

"Back -" he began, but I wasn't listening. I hit the recall button and went home.

In my bedroom, I quickly located the can of yellow spray paint I had used to stencil my jacket, and returned to the same spot. Ed Folks was staring at where I'd vanished from; he stepped back a pace when I reappeared.

"Christ," he exclaimed. "You scared the shit out of me."

I hid a grin and began marking out a square, two yards across, on the asphalt, with the yellow paint.

"Hey, what are you doing?" he asked. "You can't do that."

I tucked the can into my pocket, and turned to him. "I'll be teleporting people to this spot, you got it?" I told him. "Right here. In this square. They appear, you pull them out of the square. Don't let anyone _into_the square."

He blinked, but didn't argue. It was the best I was going to get, I guessed.

I peered up at the burning building, picked a window that didn't have fire coming out of it, and tapped in the coordinates for the window ledge.

Even though the bit I was at wasn't on fire, it was still plenty hot. Being next to a burning building was no kind of fun. I was already starting to cough when I scrambled in through the window.

"Hey!" I yelled. "Anyone! This way out! Hey!"

Pulling out a handkerchief and covering my mouth and nose with it, I stumbled farther into the building. It didn't do much.

Nor could I see much, even when I pulled out my torch.

I found a body, slumped on the floor; crouching beside him, I felt for a pulse. I wasn't the best at my first-aid class, but I figured he was alive. Now to get him down to safety.

He wasn't conscious, or near to it. He would never stand up to step on the plate. That was fine; I could work around that.

Pulling D-3 off of my belt, I dropped it on the floor beside him. D-4 had the keypad; squinting to see it in the light of the torch, I tapped in the coordinates that equated to the square I had jumped from. Without a line of sight, I just had to trust that Ed Falks wasn't standing in the middle of it, waving his arms.

The coordinates were locked in. I lifted the old man's hand – he didn't deserve to die, just because the Empire Eighty-Eight disapproved of his skin colour - then let it fall on to the plate of D-3.

He vanished.

One bystander safe.

I coughed heavily.

Picking up D-3, I found the door and went to open it, then changed my mind when I saw the smoke roiling in under the jamb. The handle was hot to the touch. Not a good idea.

I tried to recall if either of the windows on one side or the other had been free of fire.

Staggering back to the window, I leaned out and took deep breaths of air that was hot and had marginally less smoke in it. It tasted like heaven. Looking to the left, I saw flames. To the right, nothing. And then I heard the yelling.

Craning out and looking up, I saw towels being waved out the window, heard yelling.

That was where I needed to be.

Climbing out on to the window ledge, I yelled as loud as I could.

"Hey! Hey up there! Can you hear me?"

There was a pause in the yelling. I tried again. "Can you hear me?"

"Yeah," a hoarse voice replied. "We hear you! Where are you?"

"One floor down!" I yelled back. "Get away from the window. Do you hear me? Away from the window!"

"Why?" he yelled back, over the crackling of flames. Too close. I looked over my shoulder, and saw that the door was no longer blocking the flames from the corridor. The heat was suddenly a magnitude more intense. I was seriously regretting making a jacket part of my ensemble.

"Just stand back from the window!" I screamed. I couldn't wait. Tapping in the coordinates one-handed, I hit the go button.

* * *

><p>D-1 did its job, translating me straight up, on to the window ledge above. However, I coughed heavily just as I jumped, and lost my grip. I slipped, started to fall outward.<p>

A strong hand gripped my wrist, and I was hauled into the room. Getting to my feet was difficult, because I couldn't stop coughing. I looked through streaming eyes at a semi-circle of anxious faces.

Dropping D-3 on to the floor, I input the destination coordinates into D-4, stopping twice to cough.

As I did so, I could hear them talking.

"Shee-it, it's just a kid!"

"How'd he get up here?"

"Screw that, how's he gonna git us down?"

"What's he doing?"

Only my erstwhile rescuer stayed silent, watching my every move with a calculated calm.

I slumped to one side, coughing, and gestured at D-3. My words were lost in the noise of the inferno elsewhere in the building. Far too close, now.

"What?" He leaned closer.

"Step ... on ... it ..." I managed. I gestured at the window.

The voices rose again. "What did he say?"

"He said to step on it."

"Why?"

"Only one way to find out."

An elderly man, who could have been a twin for the one downstairs, hobbled forward and placed one foot gingerly on D-3. He vanished, of course.

The big man, the one who had pulled me in, leaned out the window, staring outward. Suddenly, he tensed.

"He's down there!" he yelled. "He's out! That thing teleports you!"

* * *

><p>The rest had done me good; I struggled to my knees with my handkerchief over my mouth. As they surged forward, I put out my hand, one finger upward. They stopped. I pointed at a woman carrying a baby. She stepped forward; they both vanished.<p>

Two young children, clinging together. They went as well.

One at a time, giving the unit time to charge its quantum coils, they went.

Half of the crowd of twenty - somewhat more than half a dozen, indeed - were gone, when there was a roar and a rush of heat. The door to the apartment had crumbled, and flame was rapidly encroaching on the apartment.

At the same time, a rather portly man stepped on D-3 and utterly failed to vanish. D-3 let out a mournful _beep._

"Hey, what's up?" he yelled. "Not workin'!"

I waved him back, knelt down to examine the unit. As I feared, the repeated use had drained its power cell. Looking over my shoulder, I eyed the oncoming fire. I had a solution, but it was risky as hell.

Turning D-3 over, I ripped open the access panel. Beside it, I dropped D-1 and likewise opened the panel. Pulling the QD unit from D-1, I hastily wired it into D-3; hopefully, the connection would hold long enough. And in the meantime, it was being recharged by D-5.

Which reminded me. Slapping D-1 back into its chest holder, I activated D-5 and headed for the fire. Using a control I'd added as an afterthought, I expanded the bubble around me as far as it would go - in the final estimate, about four feet in all directions.

This let a lot of surface area absorb energy. It was also risky as hell; I had to make sure that it didn't absorb too much. Overload might just equal boom.

Just a few seconds later, D-3 let out a triumphant chime. The portly man stepped on it, and vanished. A muffled cheer went up, and the next man stepped forward. I stayed where I was; the field emitted by D-5 was sucking up the flames and retarding the forward progress, but the footing was unsteady as the floor burned away.

And field or no field, it was _hot_.

The last to step out was the big man who had saved me from falling; he turned and nodded to me before vanishing.

I hurried forward, or tried to; stumbling, I went to my knees, coughing and wheezing.

I could feel the air inside my field heating up. What was happening?

_Oh, yeah, it might be overloading._

If I turned it off, that could release all the stored energy like a bomb.

I did the only thing I could; I unclipped the unit, dropped it, and used D-1 to jump across to the window where D-3 waited for me. Scooping up the faithful unit, I was reaching for the button to jump away just as D-5 exploded.

It really _was_ like a bomb.

* * *

><p>I breathed cool, dry air. It was sweet and life-giving.<p>

Slowly, I blinked open swollen, reddened eyes.

A female paramedic looked down at me. "Hey, you're awake." She raised her voice. "He's awake!"

Oh shit oh shit. I tried to reach up to my face; was my mask still on?

"Hey, relax, hero," she reassured me. "We worked around your mask. No-one saw your face."

I relaxed again, then. Breathed oxygen from the mask. Thought about how excellent it was to be alive.

Two faces leaned in to the ambulance. One was bare, but bore marks of smoke and grime around where an air mask had been covering it. The other was covered almost entirely by a helmet. I recognised Armsmaster at once, of course.

"Well, kid, you gave us all a fright at the end," said the bare-faced man. "I'm Chief Ridley. Falks says your name's Kid Quantum?"

I nodded, a little weakly. "That's me," I mumbled inside the mask.

"You saved twenty-two people today," Armsmaster took up the thread. "I examined your gear; while I didn't understand all the principles, it's pretty easy to see that you're a tinker. And that you did some sort of modifications to it in the middle of a burning building."

I nodded and shrugged; I couldn't make any sort of long speech right then.

Fortunately, he didn't need one. "That shows heroic intention, and a certain level of capability that we really need," he went on. "I'd like to extend an invitation to you.

"How would you like to be in the Wards?"

* * *

><p>End of Part 5<p> 


	6. Chapter 6

**Junior Hero**

* * *

><p><strong>Part 6<strong>

* * *

><p>I blinked my red, swollen eyes, and pulled off the oxygen mask. My voice was raspy, but at least I wasn't coughing any more. "Wait, what? The <em>Wards?"<em>

It had been in my plans to join the Wards all along, but I had kind of assumed that I'd have to put in a lot more footwork. Strut my stuff, so to speak. Prove to the PRT and the Protectorate that I had what it took to join their club.

And now, out of the blue, here was Armsmaster, the Halbeard himself, inviting me to join.

(Note to self: do not refer to him by that nickname, even in the privacy of my own thoughts, ever again.)

Well, not _totally_ out of the blue. As he said, I had just saved a bunch of folks. I supposed that counted toward 'making a name' for myself. I'd just thought that it would take a few more nights, even a few more weeks.

"Well, you aren't legally obliged to join, of course," Armsmaster - _Armsmaster!_ - went on. "But if you're looking to use your equipment in a heroic fashion, you could do a lot worse."

I sat up; I was still feeling fairly rough, but I felt that this sort of discussion really couldn't be carried out while I was flat on my back.

"My biggest problem," I confessed, "is getting the parts. I didn't really have my devices up to spec tonight, but between them and my costume, I've pretty well tapped out this month's allowance. And I really didn't want to have to wait another month before I went out."

He nodded. "A Tinker's biggest obstacle is money, yes," he confirmed. "Everyone else gets their powers more or less handed to them; Tinkers like us have to pay for materials and then put in the long hours just to be on the same playing field."

Perhaps thinking that he might have gone a little off-topic, he cleared his throat. "If you join the Wards, you'll get an annual salary and a trust fund, and after your first year, the salary doubles. Plus, of course, the training we give all our young capes, and the extra stipend that Tinkers get."

That got my attention. "Extra stipend?"

He nodded. "Anything you build using the stipend is effectively considered the property of the PRT, although in practice you have full use of it in the field, given that you're usually the one best suited to operate and maintain your equipment."

"Though some Tinker stuff does get used by the PRT," I guessed.

He nodded again. "Some Tinkers do mass-produce their equipment for general use, though they tend to be in the minority. A much more common case is when a Tinker outfits one or more of his teammates with equipment of his own design."

"So where does the PRT's 'ownership' come into it?" I asked, fascinated by the subject. I was learning more about being a Protectorate Tinker than I'd ever known before.

"Everything you build for use in the field has to be subjected to mandatory review and testing," he explained. "If it's found to be unsafe for use, or liable to cause too much collateral damage, you're required to fix that aspect of it. Fielding untested equipment that turns out to be unsafe can land you in legal trouble. If people get hurt, this becomes a _great deal_ of legal trouble."

I gulped, thinking of my blithe use of my devices to this point.

"Which reminds me," he went on. "The fire crews reported an explosion upstairs at almost the exact time you teleported out. Was that one of your gadgets malfunctioning?"

"Not ... really," I hedged. "It was a problem that I knew about, but I had to go ahead anyway." Quickly, I explained about D-5 and its overload problem, and about how D-3 had run out of power. "So you see, I had to charge it up fast, or we'd all fry. And it was only when there was no drain on D-3 - that is, once everyone was out but me - that D-5 started to overload."

"I ... see," Armsmaster replied, and it really seemed to me that he did. "At least you endangered nobody but yourself. However, that is a flaw that you will have to correct in your next iteration of the device; you do understand this, don't you?"

I nodded earnestly. "Oh, yes," I agreed. "And I know how to do it, too. Once I have the materials for more QD units, I can use one to funnel any overload to a storage battery at home or something.". I grimaced. "It's just, like you said, putting together another D-5 will cost me time and resources. Building the QD units, that'll also cost."

We were out of the ambulance by now, walking in the chill - and smoke-free - night air. Behind us, the building still burned, but it was now under control. My breathing was easier, now that most of the smoke was out of my lungs.

"This D-5 unit," he commented. "What do you need it for, apart from absorbing energy to power your devices?" _And overloading and blowing up,_ he didn't add.

"Oh, it also moves physical attacks to the far side of the bubble," I explained. "In fact, that's its primary function."

He was quick. "How about punches or kicks? Does it move the whole person?"

" ... not so much," I confessed.

"And that's a problem," he explained. "I would suggest body armour. Most Tinkers use it, for obvious reasons." He did not point out the very obvious fact that he was wearing some himself.

I shrugged. "Money."

"And as I said, the PRT can help you there." He held out a card. "Don't feel like you have to make the decision right this moment. Go home; get a good night's sleep. You've done well tonight. Here's my number. Ring it if you have any other questions."

I took the card and tucked it into my pocket. "Thanks. I will."

He went to his waiting motorcycle and swung his leg over it. I hit Return. As he started the bike up, he glanced back toward me and nodded once. I nodded back, and hit Memory 1.

Dramatic exits are awesome.

* * *

><p>Or, at least they are when they work.<p>

I didn't go anywhere.

This was embarrassing. I hit the Enter button twice more, to no great effect.

Unclipping D-1 from the chest harness, I turned it over and pried off the access panel. The trouble was, there weren't any working street lights, and I could barely see what I was doing. I reached for my torch, and realised that I must have dropped it, either up in the building, or when I jumped that last time. Either way, it wasn't on my belt.

Suddenly, light splashed across the open access panel, illuminating the interior. I looked up; Armsmaster was holding a torch, pointing it into the interior of D-1.

"Oh, uh, thanks," I stammered. He didn't say a word; I directed my attention to D-1.

It wasn't hard to find the problem; yanking out the QD unit had pulled a few wires free, and then the rough jump had jolted some of the quantum coils well out of alignment. Basically, right now? This thing didn't know _how_ to teleport.

"Uh, gonna need some workshop time," I confessed. "I mean, I could cannibalise D-3 for a working set of Q-coils, but I've only got my basic pocket toolkit. And I'd really rather not jump without aligning them under proper conditions."

I looked down the street; all of a sudden, it seemed to be a very long way home.

Armsmaster nodded understandingly.

"Need a lift?"

* * *

><p>End of Part 6<p> 


	7. Chapter 7

**Junior Hero**

* * *

><p><strong>Part 7<strong>

* * *

><p>Catching a ride with Armsmaster was <em>awesome<em>. I can't stress this enough. The bike had some serious stabilisation tech built into it, and the engine gave out more power than it realistically should have been able to do. As he had said to me, this wasn't my tinker speciality, but I could definitely appreciate good workmanship. And he'd obviously spent hours, or even days, modifying it to work exactly right.

"Hey," I ventured, when we were about halfway home, and I had gotten over the initial fanboy-squee at riding on the back of Armsmaster's bike.

"Yes?" he answered, over the sound of the engine. His helmet must have had some sort of filtering tech involved there; otherwise, he would never have heard me.

"I was just thinking … if I joined the Wards, I could build a teleport device into your bike."

"What would I need that for?" He sounded amused. "It already goes from one place to another."

"Ah, but if you're trying to get across town fast and you run into a busy intersection," I explained. "If I set it to jump you, say, twenty yards directly ahead, you just press the button and pow! You're on the other side of the intersection."

"You can do this reliably?" he asked, interest in his voice.

"Well, we'd have to build it in, and do all the testing, sure," I replied. "But I can't see why not. It would have a greater power load than my personal units, but I'm fairly certain your bike could deal with that."

"We will definitely talk about this, later," he agreed.

* * *

><p>He dropped me off about a block away from home; I watched his tail-lights recede into the distance. Then I turned and started the walk back home.<p>

It's amazing how far even a single city block is to walk when you've just gotten used to teleporting everywhere. I kept on eyeing the next corner and calculating the coordinates that would step me right to that point. But with D-1 out of action, I had no choice but to go it the hard way.

As it was, it only took me about ten minutes to trudge the remaining distance, then sneak in through the back gate. Dad decried the usual methods of keeping a back door key hidden; thieves know to look under doormats and flower pots, he would say, so you have to put the key in a place where they won't think to look. So I reached up into the plastic downpipe, and there, attached by a magnet to a piece of metal glued into the pipe, was the back door key.

I carefully opened the door; the house wasn't brand new, but it wasn't old either. A concrete base meant that there were no floorboards to creak, but I didn't dare turn on any lights so I had just as much chance of making a noise by accident in the dark.

Just as carefully, I locked the door behind me; I would replace the key in the morning. Right now, my entire focus was on getting upstairs without being caught.

And then the lights came on.

Well, there went _that_ plan.

* * *

><p>The back door led through a short hallway into the lounge room. I was just emerging into the lounge, heading for the stairs, when the lights came on, temporarily blinding me. Dad stood at the switch; he'd probably been sitting on the sofa, waiting on me.<p>

"About time you got home, son," he began coldly. "I thought I heard a noise from your room, and checked on you – what the hell is that you're wearing?"

Mom, wearing nightgown and curlers, ventured down the stairs about this time. "Rob?" she asked. "Is that you? Are you wearing a mask?"

I swore to myself. In all the excitement, the tension of sneaking back into the house, I had totally forgotten to remove my costume and mask.

I was _so_ busted.

* * *

><p>In my life, I had seen Dad irritated, exasperated and frustrated. I had never seen him really, truly angry, at least not at me. This was a first.<p>

"I can't _believe_ you'd do something so foolhardy, so reckless, without even consulting your mother or me first!" he shouted.

I sat at the dining room table, mask off, jacket hanging over the back of the chair. The harness that held D-1 lay on the table in front of me, with the battered unit still clipped in place. D-3 sat beside it, along with both remotes. I still smelled heavily of smoke; it was in my hair, in my clothes, even clinging to my skin.

"What do you want me to say?" I asked reasonably. "I screwed up, yes. I should have told you, yes. But when, and how? When's the best time to tell someone you've got powers, Dad? How do you even raise a topic like that?"

"How long have you even had powers, Robbie?" asked Mom. Whereas Dad was going with the angry-overbearing route, Mom was sticking with the tried and true how-could-you technique.

Most teens figure out these parental techniques before too long; apparently they forget that their kids will figure them out too. I was countering with reasonable-logic and sorry-won't-do-it-again, respectively. Teens have their techniques too.

"I'm sorry, Mom," I told her sincerely. "Only a couple of weeks. I've been trying to figure things out. I didn't mean to make you worry."

Unexpectedly, she hugged me. This was a change in tactic, and I couldn't help but feel guilty as a result.

"How did you even get these powers?" asked Dad. "I've been reading these things up. Apparently it takes a lot of stress for something like this to happen. Like a life and death situation."

"Were you sneaking out before you got powers, Robbie?" chimed in Mom. They were a good team; if the Olympics had a Shame-Your-Teen category, they would have been in the running for a medal.

"No, I wasn't," I responded firmly. "Tonight was the first time. And I dunno how I got them, Dad. But I do know it was the night I nearly went mad trying to solve that damn stupid no-solution physics problem you threw at me."

"Huh," he mused, distracted from his anger in his attempt to puzzle out a solution. "I might look up Wysocki over at Harvard. He might be able to shed some light on this ..."

"No way, Dad!" I blurted. "Secret identity, remember? I'm a cape. What does it matter how I got my powers? I _have_ them! I've got ideas for new devices popping up all the time. I can build them, given a workshop, tools and materials. And tonight, I saved a woman from some guys -"

I chose not to mention that she had been a streetwalker and they, prospective customers.

" - and a bunch of others from a building fire."

That got their attention.

"What, that smoke's not from one of your device thingys there?" asked Dad, poking at D-3 with a finger. Fortunately, I had shut it off, otherwise it might have popped him back to the yellow square. As it was, I jumped violently.

"Shit, Dad, don't do that! That's a teleport mine!"

"Oh, okay," he replied, hastily withdrawing his hand. "Is it, uh, live?"

I shook my head. "But seriously, it's not a good idea to poke at a Tinker's gear. That's what they say on the PHO site, anyway."

"Robbie," put in Mom, "this stuff you're building, is it … dangerous?"

I shook my head. "No. Not really. It's all about teleporting things. Moving them from one location to another. But if it's misused, sure, people can get hurt. Just like you hurt your hand if you hit it with a hammer."

There was a pause, then, as they stopped and looked at each other.

"It's late," Mom pointed out.

"I've got school tomorrow," I added.

Dad frowned. "We'll talk about this tomorrow."

I nodded as I got up. Carefully, I picked up my devices, and handed Dad the spare key.

"Oh, by the way," I added as I headed upstairs. "Armsmaster asked me if I wanted to join the Wards."

All the trouble, all the hassle, was _so_ worth the looks on their faces.

But I still didn't know _how_ to raise the question of my real parentage. Or even if I _should._

I decided to sleep on it.

* * *

><p>End of Part 7<p> 


	8. Chapter 8

**Junior Hero**

* * *

><p><strong>Part Eight<strong>

* * *

><p>"So, are you going to go through with it?" asked Dad.<p>

He'd calmed down overnight, although he still wasn't exactly thrilled at me.

"I understand it's dangerous in the Wards," Mom put in anxiously.

"Nowhere near as dangerous as it is out there for a lone hero, or even a rogue," I pointed out.

I swallowed a spoonful of cereal and continued. "I'm a Tinker. That means I can build stuff other people can use. Stuff that very basically gives them a super-power. Any criminal gang would _love_ to get their hands on a Tinker. I'd sooner join New Wave." I paused, thinking about their no-masks policy, and about the fate of Fleur, ten years ago. "Well, maybe not New Wave."

"But can't you just ... _not_ build things?" fretted Mom. "If you don't do that, then no-one will know."

I drew in a deep breath. "I can't," I confessed. "Dad, how would you feel if you were banned from teaching physics, ever again? Even though you knew you could teach so many people so much? Mom, what if you had to give up your job at the TV station? Never have anything to do with journalism, ever again? Could you do it?"

I saw the consternation in their faces. To give up what they had devoted a major portion of their lives to ... the analogy shook them a little.

"Surely it's not that bad ..." Dad began.

I nodded. "Yes. It is. I get a dozen new ideas an hour. Most of them will have to wait till I get the right materials to build them, or are simply too big, too expensive for me to even consider constructing on my own, but there are _so_ many things I can build."

Dad considered this. "I see."

"And are these things safe to use?" asked Mom.

"Sure," I agreed. "D-1 only acted up because I had to do some fast rewiring and then got caught in an explosion. And even then, with the quantum coils out of alignment, it just failed to work. It could have been much worse. I built in that safeguard on purpose."

I considered adding, _I'd rather not arrive at all than only half of me get there,_ but I figured that might be counter-productive.

Dad rubbed his chin, a sign he was thinking hard. "Well then. We'll consider this Wards thing. If you have to build these things, and it's unsafe for you to not be in a team ..."

"Thanks, Dad," I told him sincerely. I did want to be in the Wards, but I seemed to recall something about parental permission. If Mom and Dad withheld permission, this could be problematic.

"But _no more secrets_, Robbie," Mom stressed. "We should be open as a family."

"Yes, son," Dad agreed. "If you have something on your mind, come to us."

This was as good an opening as I would ever get.

"Well, there is something else, kind of connected to this ..." I began.

Both of them looked attentive.

"You might not like this one ..." I temporised, grimacing slightly.

"Spit it out, son," Dad told me heartily.

"I'm ... kind of thinking that I know where I get this ability from," I confessed. "And I don't think it's from you, Dad."

They both stared at me.

"What are you saying?" asked Mom.

Dad blinked, stared at me, then at Mom, then back at me. "Yes, what _are_ you saying?"

This had been a bad idea. I glanced at the clock. "Uh, shouldn't I be getting ready to catch the bus?"

"I'll drive you," Dad stated flatly. "Answer the question."

"Okay, I can do the math," I told them both. "I _know_ what happened about nine months before I was born. I _know_ which famous Tinker you met at that college party, Mom. And I know I don't get my blond hair from either one of you."

I may as well have dropped a live rattlesnake on the table. They were both frozen, staring at me. They both knew who I was talking about, of course. Slowly, they turned to look at each other.

"Molly, you didn't ..." Dad's voice was barely recogniseable as his own.

Mom lowered her eyes, didn't speak.

"Molly ...?"

Abruptly she raised them again. "Yes!" she snapped. "Yes, I left the party with him! But I saw who _you_ were climbing all over!"

"I told you, I never even made a pass at Alexandria!" he protested.

She snorted. "And how about that little bitch Julia Clements? Did you make a pass at _her?"_

Silence. Dad's face slowly paled. Mom's expression registered bitter triumph.

I slumped. I had really, really put my foot in it here.

"Mom, Dad -" I began.

"Not now, son," Dad replied, without looking away from Mom's face.

"No, really," I protested. "I just want to say one thing."

They both glanced at me.

_"I don't care._ I love you both. Dad, you're my _Dad_, even if you're not my father! _It doesn't matter!_ We're a family, here, now, and that's not going to change, just because things happened before you two were married."

The tension in the room didn't go all the way down, but it did ease off a notch or three. Dad took a deep breath. Mom blinked and dabbed at her eyes.

"Well?" he asked quietly, as if continuing an unspoken conversation.

"No-one else," she replied.

He nodded. "Sorry. And me neither. That night ..."

She nodded. "We were young and stupid."

They both turned to look at me, being the current incarnation of teenagerhood in the house.

"You _are_ being sensible with that girl you're seeing, Kate Hernando, right?" asked Mom.

I raised both my hands. "She's kissed me on the cheek, that's all!" I protested.

Dad raised an eyebrow. "Huh. Now I _know_ you're not my biological son." Mom punched him on the shoulder, not lightly.

"Uh ... is it all good then?" I ventured.

Mom and Dad eyed each other. "Hero," he stated.

"Julia Clements," she countered.

There was a pause.

"He's dead," she went on.

"She's fat," he responded.

"Really?"

He nodded. "Saw her on the bus a month ago. Two kids, a third in a stroller. She's kind of let herself go. She'd make two of you."

Mom looked down at herself; not the most svelte of bodies, she was still keeping herself in reasonable shape.

They both looked at me.

"We're good," Mom told me.

I stood up; my parents did the same.

Then I hugged Mom; it seemed to be the thing to do. Dad joined in, wrapping his arms around the both of us.

"Don't ever do anything like this without checking with us first, okay?" Dad's voice was down to his 'mildly irritated' tone.

"Okay," I agreed. "About that lift ...?"

"I'll drive you to the bus stop."

"Thanks."

* * *

><p>End of Part 8<p> 


	9. Chapter 9

**Junior Hero**

* * *

><p><strong>Part 9<strong>

* * *

><p>I was eating lunch in the cafeteria when Kate slipped into the seat beside me.<p>

"Hey, boyfriend," she murmured, putting her hand on mine.

I blinked; I hadn't actually considered her to be my _girlfriend_, though the idea didn't strike me as a bad one. This meant we could go on dates, and maybe make out a little, if she was okay with that.

_I_ was okay with that.

My friends were gratifyingly surprised. One of them, a guy I'd known on and off for years just as Kludge, summed up the expressions around the table.

"Holy shit," he blurted. "You never said you were going out with _Kate!"_

"I wasn't," I admitted. "Not till just recently. But I've known her for years, haven't I, Kate?"

Kate gave me a beaming smile and a kiss on the cheek. "That's right. But I've come to realise what a real _manly man_ he is, so ... hey, boyfriend material."

The pitch and spin she put on those words broke the table up with laughter, but I didn't mind, especially as she slipped her arm around my waist about then. "Talk to you in private?" she murmured in my ear, then kissed me on the cheek again.

"Hey, hey," protested Lars. "You two get a room. Keep doing that, I'll be in my bunk."

The reference cracked us all up again, except for Kate. She looked puzzled; I quickly explained about the Earth Aleph show.

"Ooh," she observed, sounding intrigued. "I think I'd like to watch that."

"I got the DVDs at home," I boasted.

_"Pirate_ DVDs, you horrible criminal pirate, you," Kludge accused me.

"I got them from _you_," I shot back.

Everyone laughed again, and we settled down to discussing Earth Aleph shows in general. Kate joined in where she could, although she hadn't seen as many as the rest of us had.

Later, about fifteen minutes before class was about to start, we made our excuses and got away to a quiet corridor.

"What's the matter?" I asked.

She pulled out the clutch purse and opened it. The KD-1 was showing a single blinking orange light.

"Ah," I noted. Taking the unit, I levered it partly out of its holder, and pressed a hidden button for a diagnostic. Text ran over the tiny screen, and I nodded. "Yeah, thought so. The quantum coils are starting to drift out of alignment. Nothing serious yet, but this indicates a crapload of use. You did the right thing, bringing it back." I looked at her. "What've you been doing with it?"

"Leaving my books at home," she grinned, "and popping home to grab them between classes. So much handier than carrying them, or leaving them in my locker." She indicated the KD-1. "Is it serious?"

I shook my head. "Nah. I can realign them now, tighten the mounts a bit. But you really shouldn't use it for such trivial purposes. This isn't a toy, you know."

"I know," she told me, such remorse in her voice that I forgave her almost immediately. "I'm sorry. I'll be more careful in future."

I smiled at her, pulled my pocket toolkit out, and gradually adjusted the mounts. Under the bright, steady light of the corridor fluorescents, it was relatively easy. After the third adjustment, the orange light winked out. I tightened the mountings a little, then snapped it back into place. "There you go," I told her, handing it back. "All yours."

She carefully stowed it in her bag, then grabbed me and gave me a gentle peck - on the lips, this time. "_Thank_ you," she whispered in my ear.

Stunned, I watched her sashay off down the corridor.

_Wow,_ I thought. _I need to fix that more often._

* * *

><p>After school, I got to fix D-1. Under Dad's watchful eye, I took it apart on the garage workbench. He was curious about how it worked, and I did my best to explain matters, but my incomplete knowledge of physics didn't help.<p>

"But this doesn't make _sense,"_ he protested for the third time. "There's no way a wormhole could be held open long enough, or large enough, for a human-sized body to pass through, without a sizeable amount of exotic matter, or enough power to recharge a galaxy's worth of stars."

"And yet, it works," I pointed out.

"I have yet actually to see this," he retorted.

I grinned. Taking a break from checking over the components of D-1, I set down D-3 at the far end of the garage, and used D-4 to set coordinates. Standing clear of D-3 and the coordinates in question, I pointed at the unit. "Step on it," I invited him.

"I'm not so sure ..." he hedged.

"Okay, then, I will," I told him. Lifting my foot, I brought it firmly down on D-3. An instant later, I was across the garage, grinning at Dad as my vision cleared.

He looked at me, then at D-3, then back at me. Then he moved purposefully toward D-3. I stepped aside hastily - didn't Dad know _anything_ about teleport safety? - and then he appeared beside me, blinking behind his glasses as the jump-dazzle faded.

"Okay," he observed. "I'm convinced ... for now. But I _still_ say it makes no sense."

"What's to make sense?" I replied. "It's Tinker tech. Everyone knows Tinker tech is bullshit."

"So I am beginning to surmise," he sighed.

* * *

><p>Given that the other QD unit had perished explosively along with D-5, I pulled the one I did have out of D-3 and set it aside. "That'll go for spare parts," I told Dad.<p>

"Why is that?" he asked. "Can't you just build another one?"

I shook my head. "If you don't build them both at the same time, you can't make it work. Certain components need to undergo quantum entanglement at the subatomic level."

"Ah," he replied. "I think I almost understood that. How do you -?"

I shrugged. "I just do it. It works. I have no idea how or why."

Dad grimaced. "More Tinker tech bullshit physics?"

"You got it."

* * *

><p>He watched carefully as I painstakingly reassembled D-1. Every component had been checked over, every connection tightened. I built in extra mounts so that it would be a lot harder to knock the Q-coils out of alignment; this seemed to be cropping up as a single point of failure in these devices.<p>

The batteries had been receiving charge from a wall plug while I went over D-1 with a fine tooth comb; I snapped them back into place, then reattached the cover plate. Pressing the Memory and Return buttons together triggered a self-test. It came up all systems green.

"Excellent," I told Dad. "Good to go."

He shook his head. "If I hadn't seen it, I wouldn't have believed it. You have trouble grasping anything but the most basic tenets of physics, but you obviously designed and built a hand-held teleport device. _Two_ devices, counting that other one."

_Three_, I corrected in my mind, but I didn't think Dad would be happy about Kate having one too.

"It's my Tinker specialty," I explained. "Every Tinker gets something he can do better than anyone else. I do teleporting devices."

He watched as I picked up D-3, turned it off, then turned it over and opened the panel. Carefully, I began taking it apart and checking over the components.

"I wish I could take your devices into class, and demonstrate wormhole tunnelling with them," he mused.

"Better not," I advised him. "You'd give the faculty a collective aneurysm. Also, this stuff isn't PRT-approved yet. Use in public, on potentially non-consenting subjects, is a strict no-no. Armsmaster told me that."

"Makes sense." He watched as I pulled out the Q-coils and examined them closely. "I think I know a little bit more about how you feel, you know."

I stopped what I was doing and glanced over my shoulder. "What about, Dad?"

"When I'm trying to explain something to you, and you get that glazed look, even though you're evidently trying to follow on ... now I know how that feels. There you are, handling something I have absolutely no idea of the function thereof, or even the principles behind it, and you're not only fully aware of them, but you're able to make adjustments without consulting half a dozen manuals about it."

I snorted. "If there's gonna be manuals about this, I've got to write them up. Which reminds me; I'm going to need to get started on that, after I finish making sure that this one isn't about to fall apart on me."

He nodded. "A good idea. But I have to thank you, for the lesson in humility. Sometimes we need to learn that we don't know everything about a particular subject, or even most of it."

I looked up, startled. "I - I didn't mean to do _that!"_

His smile was gentle. "I know you didn't, son. But it happened anyway. And I'm grateful for it. For the insight. I suspect I may be a little more tolerant with the slower members of my class from now on." He paused, and put a hand on my shoulder for a moment. "And I won't be setting _you _any more physics problems. I think you know all you need to know on the subject."

He left then, as I continued to work on D-3. My thoughts were a whirl; my hands did the work more or less automatically, which was a good thing.

_Wow,_ I thought. _Wow. Did Dad actually **say** that?_

As I finished the maintenance and reattached the cover plate, one thought was uppermost in my mind.

It didn't matter whether or not Hero was my biological father. Dad had just proven himself to be my _Dad_, once and for all.

And a pretty cool one, too.

* * *

><p>End of Part 9<p> 


	10. Chapter 10

**Junior Hero**

Part Ten

* * *

><p>That evening, I sat in front of my laptop, trying to figure out how to write up an operating manual for D-1 and D-3. Not to mention D-5, when I finally got around to rebuilding it.<p>

Thinking about D-5 made me think about the concept of armour and protection. Armsmaster had pointed out that actual body armour might be a good idea. I was inclined to believe him; D-5 had performed poorly in the task of protecting me in combat, and although it had done well against the fire, it had almost killed me when it exploded.

Almost unconsciously, I picked up the notepad and began sketching out body armour that would interlock into place, that could be teleported on and off the wearer. That made me think of something else; I visualised a shield of some sort with built-in teleport circuitry, designed to keep teleporting to the same place relative to a wristband, over and over again ...

* * *

><p>Getting up, I went to the door of my room. "Dad," I called down the stairs. "Got a question."<p>

"Shoot," he called back.

"How far does something fall in one-twentieth of a second?"

"Point four eight of an inch," he replied immediately. "You should know that one."

"Yeah, but I don't want to get it wrong. Thanks, Dad."

"You're welcome, son."

I went back to the laptop and kept working.

* * *

><p>The next morning, I was tempted to lie in, and use D-1 to go straight to school, instead of suffering the long bus ride. It was what Kate was apparently doing, after all. But then I roused myself and shambled down to breakfast. I hadn't put my shoes on, and my bag was still on my bed, but otherwise I was dressed.<p>

"Hey, champ!" my father greeted me. "I noticed your light was on pretty late last night. Studying for that big test?"

"Test?" I repeated stupidly.

"Yeah, test," he replied. "You told me about it last week. World Affairs, or something?"

The light clicked on behind my eyes. _Oh shit._

I slapped myself on the forehead. "Argh! I forgot all about that!"

"Forgot all about what, honey?" asked Mom, coming out of the kitchen with a plate of bacon.

"World Affairs test," I flung over my shoulder as I dashed back upstairs. Frantically, I looked through my bag for my textbook. It wasn't there, which meant that it was in my locker. At school.

I didn't even think about what I was doing; with one hand, I grabbed my Kid Quantum mask and pulled it over my head. With the other, I grabbed D-1. Typing in coordinates as fast as I could, I hit Enter.

* * *

><p>I stood in the dimly lit hallway, in front of my locker. A furtive glance around assured me that no-one was in sight. So far, my luck was holding.<p>

Squinting in the poor light, I spun the combination lock, then pulled the handle.

It didn't open.

Muttering words that I really should not have been using, I leaned closer and tried again. Left ... right ... left ... right ...

This time, it worked; the locker opened. I reached inside to grab my World Affairs textbook. It was even darker inside the locker; I had to go by feel. Grabbing what I thought was the correct one, I yanked on it. Half a dozen other books came with it, and clattered loudly on the floor.

I cringed as the echoes reverberated down the hallway, and hastily began shovelling books - and notes, too, I saw - back into the locker.

I was almost done when what I had feared happened; the lights started coming on. At the same moment, I heard a shout. "Hey! What do you think you're doing?"

I didn't even look to see who it was. The fluorescent lights were still flickering on and off; I shoved the other books into the locker, slammed the door shut, grabbed D-1 and the World Affairs textbook, and bolted. Running footsteps followed, but I had a good head start. Skidding barefoot around a corner, I shifted the textbook, grasped D-1, and hit the buttons to return me to my room.

Nothing happened.

I was just starting to panic when the world shifted, and I fell full-length over my bed.

* * *

><p>"Rob, are you okay up there?" my father called.<p>

I heaved a huge sigh of relief. I had forgotten about the delay for longer jumps. "Yeah, Dad. Just fell over something."

Rolling over on to my back, I pulled the mask off. As the jump-dazzle faded and I tried to catch my breath, I thought over what had just happened.

I had just been seen.

* * *

><p>Admittedly, I hadn't been seen <em>well,<em> but I had indeed been seen. Someone – I thought it was maybe the janitor, or one of the teachers – had spotted me going through my own locker. Though hopefully, the flickering lights had made it hard to get any details. Or tell them exactly which locker I had been at. That, and the mask, should maybe prevent them from figuring out that it had been me.

Climbing off the bed, I peeled off the t-shirt and replaced it with another one. That was one point of identification that I didn't want to provide.

_All this for my World Affairs textbook._

Stashing D-1 and my mask back away, I hefted the textbook. Last-minute study was not ideal, but it was better than no study at all.

* * *

><p>Except that Mom didn't seem to think so. "Rob<em>bie!"<em> she scolded me, even as I used the honey jar and a ketchup bottle to prop the open textbook up at the table.

"What, Mom?" I asked, trying for an innocent tone, adjusting the ketchup. "I've got a test."

"And you couldn't have been studying _before_ this morning?" she scolded me. "While you were building those devices of yours, or going out and trying to be a superhero?"

"I wasn't just _trying_ to be a superhero, Mom," I pointed out. "I _was_ a superhero. I saved lives. I helped people."

"And you nearly got yourself killed into the bargain," she retorted. "Why couldn't you have gotten a _safe_ hobby?"

"Now, Molly, the boy has a point," Dad interjected mildly. "I've seen his devices at work. They're … astounding. He could really make a difference with them, if he can make other machines using the same principles."

"I can, Dad," I assured him. "I've got about a dozen other things that I want to make. I just need the materials."

"Which you can get by joining the Wards," he finished.

"Which I can get by joining the Wards," I agreed. "But right now, I don't want to bomb out in World Affairs." I gestured to the textbook.

Mom opened her mouth to say something, but Dad shook his head slightly. She looked at him, then at me, and sighed.

"Just promise me that you'll take care, Robbie, all right?" she asked.

I nodded. "That, I can promise," I assured her. "No way do I want to have that happen again."

She smiled as she got up from her seat. On the way to the kitchen, she ruffled my hair fondly. I knew I was forgiven.

* * *

><p>With my shoes on my feet and my bag on my shoulder – including D-2, shoved in there at the last minute – I tried to study some more on the bus. But in between greeting my friends, the jostling of random strangers, and the jolting of the bus over Brockton Bay's admittedly substandard roads, it wasn't easy. In fact, it was leading me rapidly toward motion sickness. So I had to put the book down and look around, before I was in too much danger of having a second look at breakfast.<p>

I tried a few more times, but eventually had to give it up. Study and buses just don't seem to mix, for some reason. _Fine, _I told myself. _I'll study a bit more once I'm at school._

* * *

><p>The bus pulled in to Clarendon and I got off, along with all the other students. Along with everyone else, I went inside, then I peeled off, heading for the library. It was nice and quiet, I reasoned. Perfect place to study.<p>

"Robbie!"

I froze; it was Kate's voice. Slowly, I turned; she caught up with me, smiling broadly. "I am _so_ glad I caught you," she enthused.

"Wow, hi, Kate," I replied. "I, uh, thought you usually hang out with your friends before class."

She tossed her hair. I admired the move; she must have practised it in the mirror or something. It actually looked really good on her.

"Oh, they're fun to be with, but not as much fun as _you, _Robbie," she purred.

I gulped. "I, uh, was just, uh, going ..."

That was as far as I got before she hooked her arm through mine, and my speech centres just plain failed. "Well, lead on," she told me. "Come on, let's go."

* * *

><p>So we went to the library. I sat with the World Affairs textbook, and Kate sat next to me. I really did try to study, but having her very distracting presence right beside me, occasionally leaning on my shoulder to point out an interesting paragraph, meant that my brain dissolved into tapioca, and oozed down to pool in the back of my skull. The book could have been the secrets of the universe encoded into Urdu, for all that I could grasp of it.<p>

By the time the bell went, we had covered a page and a half, and I couldn't recall a single damn thing about it.

"Whoops, gotta go," Kate told me, leaping to her feet. She kissed me on the cheek, her warm, perfumed presence utterly overpowering my higher mental functions. "See you at lunch!"

"Yeah, right, see you then," I agreed, stumbling to my feet and closing the textbook.

_I am so dead._

* * *

><p>First period – History – dragged by. I managed to get a little more study done, with the World Affairs textbook under the desk, but not much. Second period was Biology, and I had trouble concentrating, especially with Kate sneaking me smiles every now and again. In the third period was World Affairs.<p>

I dragged my feet into that class and plumped myself down at the desk. Mr Webster went around the classroom, dropping test papers face down on to desks. I had a pen out and ready by the time he told us to turn the papers over.

I did my best, but in that particular situation, my best was in no way good enough. Twice, I had to stop myself before doodling a new gadget concept on the edge of the paper. I filled out the answers I was fairly sure of, went back to hit the ones I was kinda sure of, and was staring blankly at the rest when Mr Webster told us to put our pens down.

* * *

><p>The bell rang for lunch, and I grabbed my bag and headed to the cafeteria, along with everyone else. After lining up and grabbing lunch, I ended up at the same table with Lars and Kludge and a few others. Kludge caught me looking around.<p>

"What's the matter, Rob?" he asked. "She stand you up?"

I frowned. "Yeah, actually," I admitted. "She said she'd meet me at lunch."

"Wow, that's cold," Lars observed. "That's not like Kate."

"No, it's not," I agreed. But twisting my neck around didn't cause her to pop into view, so I reluctantly started on my lunch.

"So, who's got the latest Earth Aleph shows?" Kludge asked, in a rare display of tact.

"I got some," offered Lars. "That cop show, got the same main actor from Firefly, what's his name -"

I was about to offer the name, when Kate slipped into the seat beside me and kissed me on the cheek. The colour was high in her own cheeks, and her eyes were sparkling. "Hi, boyfriend," she murmured. "I hope you didn't think I was standing you up."

"I – no, of course not," I blurted.

At the other end of the table, Lars coughed loudly. To my trained ear, it sounded like "Bullshit!"

It seemed to me that Kate might have also caught this, so I hastily added, "Uh, I _was_ wondering where you were, though."

"Oh, I had to stay back in class for a few minutes," she explained airily. "Nothing serious." She opened her lunch, and I knew immediately that she hadn't bought it in the cafeteria. I also thought I knew where she'd been; despite my admonition to her, she was ducking home and making lunch there, then bringing it back to school.

"I see," I commented. "Bring that from home, did you?"

She glanced at me, then at her lunch; a guilty look flashed across her face, making her look cuter than ever. "I, uh, yes, I did," she admitted.

"Looks nice," I commented dryly; she flushed darkly. I grinned; usually, _she_ had _me_ at a disadvantage. To have it the other way around was fun.

"Castle!" exclaimed Lars; I jumped.

"What?" I asked him.

"Name of the show," he explained. "Castle. The one we were talking about."

"Oh," I responded weakly. "Yeah. Castle. That's the one."

I turned back to Kate, but she had regained her composure, and her eyes dared me to bring up the subject again. I didn't quite have the nerve, so I started explaining about the show that had been mentioned. She seemed rather intrigued; I made a mental note to get a copy from Lars.

* * *

><p>After we finished our lunches, she grabbed me by the arm and got up from the table. I hastily said my goodbyes to the others, then allowed her to guide me out of the cafeteria.<p>

"Uh, sorry about giving you a hard time about your lunch," I began, once we were alone, "but I really think you should -"

I stopped, because she was pressing one cool finger against my lips.

"That's all right," she murmured. "I forgive you."

"I – uh – okay," I agreed. "That's cool. What's the problem? Is there another warning light?"

"Oh, no," she told me happily. "It's worked perfectly since you fixed it."

"Great!" I replied. _Darn, _I thought.

"But there's one other thing," she went on. "How much weight can it transport at once?"

I blinked. "Oh, uh, with yours, I basically made it so it would carry you, plus half your weight. A fixed capacity makes for a much more streamlined build, because it negates the need for bulky mass adaptors to the Q-coils, and -"

"Okay, okay, I got it," she giggled. "Tech stuff. One and a half times my weight."

"Yeah," I agreed with a nod. "You, plus your clothes, your books, and stuff like that. With a bit of a margin on the side, just in case."

"Well, that explains that," she mused. "I tried using it to carry me plus a lot of stuff, and it left stuff behind. Now I know why."

"Uh, what did you try to carry?" I asked with a frown. "And what was the effect?" I hadn't purposely overloaded the Q-coils on D-1 yet; I wanted to set up proper test equipment first.

"Oh, um, a big bag of books," she replied. "And it just left the books behind."

"No books cut in half?" I asked.

She shook her head. "No, just some there, and some not. They were lying on the floor when I came back downstairs."

"Right, right. Good." I fixed her with a stern eye. "Don't do that again. You might have hurt yourself."

Her eyes were really huge and soft; I found myself more or less falling into them. "Okay, Robbie," she breathed. "I'll be good."

I felt the fleeting pressure of her lips against mine, and then the bell was ringing for next class. Dazed, I blinked, and she was dashing off down the corridor. She stopped halfway, turned, waved, and was gone.

_Wow,_ I told myself. _Just wow. I wonder what I did to deserve that._

* * *

><p>I didn't see Kate again that day; I even hung around at the bus stop for a while, but she didn't show. <em>No wonder; she's probably used the KD-1 to simply teleport home,<em> I decided. I had wanted to talk to her about that, but she had very neatly steered me off.

It was very hard to be angry at Kate, I decided. No matter the strength of my conviction, all she had to do was look soulfully at me, and all was lost.

Of course, I decided, there were worse things than to have Kate Hernandez as my girlfriend.

* * *

><p>In the end, having missed two buses, I decided to do what she had done, and ducked into a quiet corner. Pulling D-2 out of my bag, I hit the recall button; D-1 appeared in my hands. Hitting Recall then 1 popped me right into my room.<p>

Picking up the bag that held my costume and shoving D-1 and D-2 back into it, I strolled downstairs. Dad looked up as I entered the living room.

"Oh, you're home," he observed. "I didn't hear you come in."

"Yeah, well, I got my ways," I grinned. "Listen, can you give me a lift in to the PRT building? I've decided to go in today and do my application."

He frowned. "Are you using that device just to go to and from school? That seems to be a very frivolous use. What if you were seen?"

"No, just from," I explained. "Missed my bus."

"Hm," he murmured. "Well, it's done, I guess. So sure, I can give my son the superhero a lift in to the PRT."

"Thanks, Dad," I told him. "I really mean it."

He got out of the chair, and ruffled my hair on the way to get the car keys. "It's no problem. I'm just delighted that you want to use your powers for good."

I grinned. "I'd never hear the end of it from you and Mom if I didn't."

* * *

><p>The PRT, I decided, must really want people to sign up for the Wards. After Dad had made discreet enquiries at the desk, we had been escorted, equally discreetly, into the elevator and taken up several storeys. There, Dad and I had spoken to a PRT official, who had ascertained our identities, as well as the costumed identity that I intended to take up. We had been shown to an interview room, where I had been handed a stack of forms to fill out.<p>

Filling out these forms was not particularly arduous; where I faltered, Dad was able to take over. It was simply time-consuming.

Which was possibly the idea. Because we were about three-quarters of the way through the forms when the door to the interview room opened. The figure that filled the doorway was familiar enough.

"Oh, hi, Armsmaster," I greeted him. "Decided to take the plunge."

"Robert Curry, also known as Kid Quantum," he replied grimly. "You build teleportation technology."

"Uh, yes, I do," I answered, a little off-balance. "You know that already."

He nodded curtly. "Do you know where I've just come from?"

I blinked, and looked at Dad. He shrugged. I looked back at Armsmaster. "Uh, no idea?"

"Investigating the latest in a string of robberies," he told me heavily. "Robberies that could only have been committed by a teleporting thief."

* * *

><p>End of Part Ten<p> 


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